Commerzbank now offers trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum

Commerzbank is now offering institutional clients exposure to the Bitcoin and crypto market. The major German bank announced this today, September 19, 2024.

In a first step, the offering will focus on Bitcoin and Ethereum and is initially aimed at "selected existing clients in the German corporate client segment", according to the press release.

"With our offering in the area of digital assets, we are giving our corporate clients the opportunity to take advantage of the opportunities offered by Bitcoin and Ether for the first time," said Gernot Kleckner, Divisional Board Member for Capital Markets in Commerzbank's Corporate Clients segment.

Specifically, this will involve institutional investors such as pension funds and family offices, as Kleckner explained to Handelsblatt.

Our offering is primarily aimed at institutional investors such as pension funds, insurers, asset managers and also family offices that manage the assets of wealthy families.
_{Gernot Kleckner told Handelsblatt}

According to the divisional director, companies that want to buy cryptocurrencies as an add-on for their own pension funds will also make inquiries.

As part of the new offering, the DAX-listed company will take care of the custody of the digital assets. Commerzbank is working with Crypto Finance, a Swiss subsidiary of Deutsche Börse, for trading.

Last November, Germany's second-largest private bank became the first German universal bank to receive a crypto custody license. However, Kleckner expects competition in this segment to increase significantly in the future.

The fact that more and more established financial service providers are entering the Bitcoin market is a further indication that institutional demand for Bitcoin is high and that the asset is reaching the mainstream.

In the US, two of the world's three largest asset managers, BlackRock and Fidelity, already offer Bitcoin spot ETFs. They work together with major banks such as JPMorgan.